This area has been established to allow you, our visitors and contributors, to get to know one another a bit better, or to discuss subjects of general interest, without feeling obliged to restrict your postings to language-related topics. But we draw the line at floccinaucinihilivilification.

<2012 “We have entered the age of quantum politics; and Mitt Romney is the first quantum politician. In much the same way that light is both a particle and a wave, Mitt Romney is both a moderate and a conservative. It is not that he is one or the other; it is not that he is one and then the other. He is both at the same time.”—in The Week by David Javerbaum of The New York Times, 13 April, page 14>

Not only can Mitt Romney be said to be simultaneously moderate and conservative, but just as Erwin Schrödinger's unfortunate cat was neither living nor dead in its box, when the polls close in November Romney will be both politically alive and dead at the same time -- at least until the ballot boxes have been opened and the votes have all been counted.

My hope is that he eventually emerges from his electoral ordeal more dead than alive.

Fortunately, he is already showing considerable promise in this regard.

Like the Supreme Court's decision that purchasing health insurance is a tax. I have never resented paying taxes. Even as a young person I had to pay my social security tax and state income tax. When we were in very bad shape financially in the 1980's we still had to pay property taxes, but I knew those went for important things like schools. Taxes are just part of life and when you do better financially you pay more, just as you also give more to charity or your church if that's your desire.

The recent decision is going to be a HUGE change-maker in our country for years to come. There are already many pacifists who resent paying taxes to support the military, and fundamentalists who protest taxpayer-funded abortions. Defining the personal purchase of health insurance as a tax broadens the definition of tax and the lawyers will be having fun with it for years to come!